Environmental Police director's staff overhaul draws scrutiny

Four months into his tenure as director of the Massachusetts Environmental Police, Col. James McGinn sent word to his superiors that he was planning a shakeup of the agency's management.

His plan included demoting several of the department's highest-ranking officers and hiring an old law school classmate to become the agency's second-in-command. The newly open positions were not posted on internal or external job boards. Instead, McGinn jumped two sergeants up to the rank of major, skipping or moving quickly past the ranks of captain and lieutenant.

The changes, which included several moves that appear to violate the department's own policies, set off a flurry of emails and meetings between McGinn, senior staff in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, lawyers, human resources staff, and the Civil Service Commission.

"There should definitely be postings whenever any kind of police or fire department has openings," said Joseph Sulman, a Boston labor lawyer. "That's a big issue in any kind of employment context -- civil service or not -- it always raises an issue of whether there's political considerations, cronyism, anything like that."

EEA Communications Director Peter Lorenz said the environmental police adhere to a written promotion policy and state hiring law.

When he announced the staffing overhaul to the rank and file, McGinn offered no explanation about why a lieutenant colonel, major, and captain were being demoted, according to emails obtained by The Sun through public records requests, union documents, and interviews.

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In a May 29, 2015 email to Michael Valanzola, the newly minted EEA chief operating officer, McGinn said his changes were "the best-case scenario for now that will move the agency forward until the differences can be worked out."

EEA refused to make McGinn available for an interview and Lorenz refused to answer questions about why the staffing changes were made. The agency redacted most of the email conversations between McGinn, Valanzola and other agency employees regarding the shakeup.

Under Gov. Charlie Baker, EEA has been wracked with accusations of patronage hiring and political retaliation. McGinn and Valanzola have been at the center of those complaints, which prompted the Massachusetts Democratic Party to request in June that the state inspector general investigate the agency.

McGinn is no stranger to meteoric promotions. His last law enforcement job before being named a colonel was as a sergeant with the State Police. In between that bump in the ranks, McGinn was Baker's campaign driver.

His predecessor as director of the Environmental Police, Aaron Gross, was a security guard to former Gov. Deval Patrick before Patrick appointed him to the position.

Valanzola was also appointed to a senior state job, the new position of EEA chief operating officer, after volunteering on Baker's campaign. He and his cousin, Jared Valanzola, were forced to resign their state jobs after less than two years, following allegations that they threatened to retaliate against Cynthia Lewis, an EEA employee, if her fiancé entered the race to unseat Republican state Sen. Don Humason, of Westfield.

The Lewis scandal was not the first time Valanzola intervened after a state employee became involved in politics as a Democrat.

In a previously unreported incident in April 2016, Environmental Police Officer Frank Soleimani approached Russell Fox, a member of the Board of Selectmen in his hometown of Southwick, and asked for advice on running for selectman as a Democrat, Fox said.

His opponent in the race would have been an incumbent Republican with ties to Republicans in the state Legislature. Soleimani never returned his nomination papers, however. Several weeks after his conversation with Fox, he was fired from his job.

The letter announcing the decision was written by Valanzola.

Soleimani declined to comment for this article, but much of his story is documented with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and in a pending lawsuit against EEA.

According to the MCAD complaint and lawsuit, supervisors -- in particular Sgt. David Loos, who would soon be promoted -- falsely accused Soleimani, who is a veteran, of having PTSD and drew up a list of trumped-up charges to justify terminating him.

He was reinstated after the Civil Service Commission ruled in his favor.

As the Soleimani case began to unfold, McGinn and Valanzola started discussing the Environmental Police staffing shakeup, according to their emails.

The first change they made was to demote Lt. Col. Christian Baker, who had served as the interim director of the agency until McGinn's appointment. He was sent back to the rank of sergeant.

In his place, McGinn installed Brian Perrin, a Winthrop police lieutenant who received a special four-year leave of absence from his local department to take the Environmental Police job, which came with a considerable bump to his salary and pension.

McGinn and Perrin had attended the Massachusetts School of Law together in the late 1990s and in 2013 McGinn supported Perrin's campaign for the Winthrop School Committee on social media.

Both men have donated to the campaigns of Gov. Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. Neither had prior experience in conservation law enforcement before becoming the number one and two environmental law enforcement officers in the state.

Perrin is the first lieutenant colonel in the history of the Environmental Police who was not promoted from within the department. The department's promotion policy states that "It shall be the policy of the Office of Law Enforcement to promote officers to command staff positions exclusively from lower ranks within OLE."

"Colonel McGinn and Lieutenant Colonel Perrin have dedicated their careers to civil service and public safety, and have extensive experience in law enforcement, including a combined 47 years with state and local law enforcement," Lorenz said in a statement.

The lieutenant colonel position was not posted for internal or external applicants to apply, according to state records obtained through a public records request. Neither were the two majors positions that McGinn filled next.

One of those position, the newly created major of special operations, went to Sgt. William Bilotta. Only lieutenants and captains may apply for promotions to major, according to Environmental Police policy.

Under McGinn, at least two sergeants have been promoted to majors, one sergeant has been promoted to captain, a lieutenant has been promoted to major, and another lieutenant has been promoted to captain without any of the open positions being posted internally or externally.

All of the Environmental Police employees who were demoted refused The Sun's request to comment for this article.

Several EEA employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared for their jobs, said McGinn gave the promotions to personal friends, some of whom he knew from his time as a state trooper and his political campaigning, and that managers who had thrived while a Democrat was in the Statehouse were quickly tossed aside.

That opinion is not unanimous within the Environmental Police, however. Sgt. Mike Camire, president of the Environmental Police Officers Association, the union representing officers, said the agency has run smoothly under McGinn and Perrin.

"This is an agenda-driven thing that some people who were demoted were not happy with and they're just doing everything they can to get back," he said, adding, "I can understand them being disappointed, angry, whatever, and their answer is to use you as a pawn to lash out at the Environmental Police."

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